


Nowhere to Go (But Down)

by Sandylee007



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depressed Magnus Bane, Drama, Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending, Love, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18443759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandylee007/pseuds/Sandylee007
Summary: Magnus looks down and notices for the first time just how long the distance to the ground is. And a yearning, such he experienced on a bridge in London a lifetime or two ago, awakens. He squeezes the balcony’s railing until his knuckles turn white but doesn’t manage to come up with even a single reason to change his mind.Why prolong the inevitable when he has nothing left to stay for?INSPIRED BY 3x18 PROMO                  Alec accepts the deal with Asmodeus, imagining that it’ll make Magnus happy. Instead Magnus gets his heart broken one time too many while simultaneously losing the only thing that’s kept him holding on. And makes a tragic decision.                                TRIGGER WARNING FOR A SUICIDE ATTEMPT





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I typed this mainly because I’m VERY nervous about what’s to come. I dread to imagine how Magnus might take Alec accepting Asmodeus’s deal and breaking his heart in his current mental condition. The last thing he needs is losing the one thing keeping him hanging on…! (whimpers) So, of course, my head decided to create the pretty much most depressing option possible, LOL.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: YEEEEAH, right… I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. If I did own anything, I wouldn’t torture you guys with releasing only one episode a week. (growls)
> 
> WARNINGS: HEAVILY TRIGGERING MATERIAL, description of suicidal thoughts and an actual suicide attempt – approach with caution if those are… touchy topics for you! AND IF YOU FEEL LIKE MAGNUS DOES IN THIS STORY, SEEK HELP – LIFE IS PRECIOUS, AND YOU DO MATTER!
> 
> Awkay… Are you ready? Because here we go. I REALLY hope that you’ll enjoy this ride, angsty as it will be.

/ _“I need a break, from us.”_ /

He’s hundreds of years old. He’s heard those words more times than he can accurately count. And only precious few times they’ve preceded something other than pain and sorrow.

Magnus was so careful for such a long time. Kept his heart locked and guarded. Until Alec came along and cracked it open with a ridiculous amount of ease. Fit into the far too many times cracked, battle-weary organ like he’d always had a home there.

And Magnus did a stupid thing. He hoped. Hoped that perhaps the happiness might get to last. That perhaps Alexander wouldn’t break his heart. At least for a very long time.  
After hoping he did something even more foolish. He started believing.

/ _“Magnus, of course you matter.”_ /  
/ _“I’ve always dreamed of meeting someone like you.”_ /  
/ _“I don’t care who your dad is. I care who you are. And you’re the furthest thing from a Greater Demon.”_ /  
/ _“You’re beautiful.”_ /  
/ _“I love you.”_ /  
/ _“I don’t think I can live without you.”_ /  
/ _“I’m not going anywhere.”_ /

Magnus flinches when the most bittersweet empty words come to his mind. Such none of his great many past lovers had ever uttered to him. Perhaps that was why they meant so much to him when they came out of Alec’s mouth. 

/ _“You don’t have to pretend how you feel, especially not with me.”_ /  
/ _“Sometimes it’s okay to let others take care of you.”_ /

He trusted Alec, damned it! (With his body, soul and battered heart.) Because the archer was supposed to be different. But then again, what did Magnus expect? Alec was a young, gorgeous and powerful, well-respected Shadowhunter living the best time of his life. A beautiful flower about to burst into a full bloom. Wasn’t it only inevitable that sooner or later he’d get tired of looking at the withering weed Magnus had become? How could he expect Alec to stand him like this when he couldn’t stand himself?

When Alec fell in love with him, he was the High Warlock with a fancy penthouse apartment. Someone people came to for help, the archer with his friends and family included, countless of times. He wasn’t even a proper warlock anymore, not without his magic. (Which he lost because he valued Alec’s happiness over his own and made a bitter, unfair deal with his father.) He no longer even had a home. (The Shadowhunter asking him to find a new home for both of them feels like such a long time ago, now.) Somewhere along the way he apparently lost Alec’s love, too. Now he is a lonely mundane growing grey.

In the sea of despair and losses Magnus had one and only beacon of light. The same that begged him to keep fighting when he would’ve rather died than given up the magic Lorenzo sold him. Now… Now he truly has nothing left anymore. Nowhere to go. Nothing to fight for. And the darkness inside his head is drowning him.

Magnus isn’t sure how he ended up to the Institute’s balcony where he not too long ago ruined a beautiful dinner. Showed himself at his weakest, most pathetic and vulnerable. Failed and was forced to admit that he couldn’t pretend to be happy just because he saw how happy Alec had been since he lost his immortality. Was that where the end began? Was that when Alec decided to give up on him, on them?

Magnus isn’t crying while he stares at the view spreading from the balcony. He broke down once, in front of Catarina, when he lost his post. He cried longing his magic more times than he would’ve cared to remember, all alone, especially when Alec was still recovering from his arrow wound. And he crumbled in front of Alec in this very place, just once, to a whimpering mess. When the gnawing, empty hole inside him got too much to bear and alcohol broke what little was left of his self-control. (That slip-up seems to have cost him the one good thing he had left in his life.) Now he has no more tears left. And no idea what to do with himself and the rest of his short existence.

Magnus looks down and notices for the first time just how long the distance to the ground is. And a yearning, such he experienced on a bridge in London a lifetime or two ago, awakens. He squeezes the balcony’s railing until his knuckles turn white but doesn’t manage to come up with even a single reason to change his mind.

Why prolong the inevitable when he has nothing left to stay for?

/

Alec expected Magnus to fight him when he announced that they were over. Or to at least ask ‘why’. Instead the older man accepted it all with a horrible air of defeat and a nod, like someone who’d expected to be left and let down. Like someone who’d expected to be deemed unworthy eventually. It was worse than any amount of arguing and shouting.

Officially Alec left Magnus to pack up. (Never asking where his now ex-boyfriend would go, because he couldn’t bear hearing the answer.) In reality he headed to his office to hide. And to not reveal how close to breaking down he was. He had to walk away before Magnus’s would’ve realized that he was pushing away and letting go of something he couldn’t imagine living without.

Five hours after he walked out his phone received a message. ‘ _Aku Cinta Kamu. Not that that changes anything. Goodbye, Alec._ ’ Alec had no idea what the first part meant, just that with those three sentences it was officially over. He burst into sobs that wouldn’t stop.

Two more hours later Alec finally dares to approach his room. (Just his, now, and he doesn’t think it’s ever felt so lonely and empty.) “Magnus?” He’s sure that the man has left, but still…

All his thoughts freeze when he stares at the room.

Magnus’s belongings never actually took that much space. But seeing them packed up and ready to go… It breaks something inside Alec. The worst is noticing that the man he loves more than anything has left the _omamori_ charm out of the boxes, clearly on purpose.

_What have I done?_

Alec is startled out of his thoughts when he hears Clary’s frantic voice. “Alec, you’ve gotta come now! It’s Magnus!”

Hearing the name is enough to make Alec follow without a question. They don’t go far until he encounters a sight that’ll haunt him for the rest of his life. It sucks all air from his lungs with a single, desperate cry that has no hope of reaching its target. “MAGNUS!”

Alec doesn’t notice how Jace and Izzy join them, both almost as horrified as he feels when they see as well. He contemplates running. Until he realizes that even with the help of his Speed rune he wouldn’t make it there before it’d be too late.

The deal… It was supposed to save Magnus’s life. It was supposed to make him happy. Instead Magnus jumps from the balcony.

While his whole world plummets to emptiness Alec falls to his knees, tears sliding down his cheeks and his mouth opening for a scream that never comes.

/

For a moment Magnus imagines that he hears someone calling out his name. Until he decides that he’s imagining things. Steeling himself with a deep breath, he closes his eyes and spreads his arms.

When you have nowhere else to go but down, why not let yourself fall?

He isn’t sure how long he flies downwards. Just that those are the first moments in a very long time during which he experiences relief. It feels _so good_ to finally stop fighting.

Suddenly something grabs him. Something which feels so familiar that it takes his breath away. He opens his eyes slowly to meet a pair of cat eyes that once made him feel like he’d come home. Later they brought fear and resentment into him. Now, when things can’t get any worse, facing them makes him feel nothing.

Asmodeus uses Magnus’s magic to pull him back to safety. There’s a mixture of pity, amusement and something undecipherable on the Greater Demon’s face. “I take it you have learned your lesson, son. Are you ready to go home?”

Magnus says nothing. Only goes along. Letting his father lead him from a figurative hell to a literal one.

/

Alec doesn’t hear Jace’s shocked gasp from beside him. Nor does he feel the supportive hands pressed against him. All his tear-filled eyes see is the empty spot where Magnus just was.

And he realizes, too late, that the deal he made with Asmodeus is the worst mistake of his entire life.

/

Later Magnus watches familiar blue magic dancing around his fingers. After just a few seconds he already feels like he’s regained his soul. It’s almost enough to help him forget the shattered heart he left behind.

Magic is his soul. Alec is – _was_ – his heart. He supposes he’ll have to get used to always living without one of them.

“Welcome home”, Asmodeus says from behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec heads to Edom to bring Magnus back. Will the two of them get a happy ending?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… As it turned out my head was unable to leave our boys to a sad ending, with the two of them torn apart. So, TA-DA! Here’s the second chapter I originally wasn’t planning on typing. (chuckles)
> 
> DAAANG… THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for all those AMAZING comments you left for the first chapter! (HUGS) It’s thanks to you guys this chapter saw daylight. So I REALLY hope that you’ll enjoy the ride!
> 
> JUST A TINY NOTE BEFORE WE GO: I left out several bits of fighting and preparations for a battle on purpose. Because we’re all here for angst and a makeup. (grins)
> 
> (Song I listened to a lot while typing this: ‘The Story’ by Sara Ramirez)

The moment Asmodeus takes Magnus along, Alec knows what he’ll have to do. Forever seems to pass before his little team of friends and family is properly armed and ready. They take off as soon as they are, ignoring several people’s warnings, knowing that there isn’t time to waste.

Somehow Edom succeeds in being worse and more desolate than Alec anticipated, and he becomes even more desperate to drag Magnus away from there.

It takes frustratingly long before Alec manages to break away from the raging battle that ensues. He isn’t entirely sure what leads him, how he has even the faintest idea where to go. If he would’ve been the romantic sap that he isn’t, he would’ve assumed that his heart was leading him.

The tiny room he finds is so dimly lit that it’s difficult to see. But eventually he registers metal. A cage, and chains. He feels sick to his stomach immediately. And wants to fall apart, screaming and crying, when he looks down.

Magnus is on his knees on the floor, head hung low. It’s easy to tell that if it wasn’t for the chains around his wrists the warlock wouldn’t have remained upright. He’s so chillingly still and quiet that for an endless, terrible moment Alec fears the worst. What if he came too late…?

Alec takes a shaky step closer. His throat so closed up that talking and even breathing is nearly impossible. “Magnus? Can you hear me?”

It’s hardly even a whisper. And Magnus seems to be… barely there. But the older man reacts to his voice with a full-body shiver and a breath that sounds like a whimper. “Asmodeus, stop…!” Magnus trails off, there, the strain of forming speech proving too much.

A tear rolls down Alec’s cheek. Just one, breaking past all his willpower. _What did he do to you…?_ A million things want to squeeze their way out at the same time. “Magnus, I’m… I’m so sorry.” For so much that his heart can barely take it.

Magnus lifts his head, there. Very slowly. In no condition to hold up glamour, the warlock stares at him with the cat eyes Alec realizes he’s missed terribly. If only they weren’t so full of agony, defeat, mistrust and exhaustion. “Alec? What… are you doing here?”

Alec isn’t sure which one is worse. The man he loves using his shortened name, or the disbelief. “I came to take you back home.”

Magnus shakes his head. Suddenly a great deal more conscious and frantic, fighting the chains. “No! Get...” The warlock coughs and fidgets, spits out blood when he’s done. “Get out of here, before he comes back and sees you!”

It’s Alec’s turn to shake his head. His eyes flash from the same determination he experienced moments before their first kiss what feels like a lifetime ago. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” _I’m not walking away from you, not ever again._

The cage isn’t locked. What point would there have been in locking it when Magnus would’ve had no hope of making it to the door? The chains are heavy and firm but no match against Alec’s determination. The sword he’d been carrying along, a foreign and awkward extra weight, cuts through them like butter.

Magnus slumps forward with a grunt of fatigue and discomfort but Alec’s ready for it. He catches the man who is his world and holds him, with all the despair he felt while imagining that he’d never get another embrace. He hates how tense Magnus is against him. Hates that he reduced the warlock to a state where he isn’t able to trust his comfort anymore.

Alec closes his eyes when tears fill them and cups Magnus’s face with one hand. It’s an aching role reversal from the previous time they talked to each other properly. “I love you”, he breathes out. “You have to know that. I need you to know that. I love you, I never stopped.” Once he’s gotten started he isn’t able to silence himself. “I still want you. And to be with you. More than I want anything.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything back and it hurts more than almost any words could’ve.

Everything is infuriatingly awkward and tense. Alec draws in a shaky breath, his chest uncomfortably tight. “Do you think you can walk? You can have my strength…”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish before Magnus is fighting to get back to his feet. The familiar, fierce determination tugs at something inside the archer, no matter how horrible things are at the moment. “I’m fine.” How many times has Magnus lied that already during the time they’ve known each other? A pair of golden eyes catch something behind Alec and without a warning a hand shoots out, sending a ball of energy. The Shadowhunter looks over his shoulder just in time to see a tiny demon being destroyed. “Let’s just get out of here.”

/

It takes another frustrating eternity before Alec gets the chance to try and really talk with Magnus. By then the warlock is sitting on the edge of a bed at the Institute’s infirmary. “I… brought you some clothes”, Alec offers. “Since Catarina says that you’ll need to wait for a while before using magic.” Edom and whatever Asmodeus did took a massive toll on Magnus. As did finally breaking out of that terrible place. According to Catarina it’ll take time before the older man recovers.

Alec wonders if their relationship has any hope of recovering as well.

Magnus accepts the garments with a nod of gratitude and begins to get changed. Obviously eager to get rid of the clothes that reek of a trip to hell. (Of pain, despair and sorrow.) If the warlock notices that Alec isn’t able to look away, he says nothing.

It’s horrible to see the marks the brief stay in Edom left on Magnus’s body. Despite Catarina having done her best there are cuts and what look like burn marks almost everywhere. And it isn’t only that. Every single one of Magnus’s muscles is trembling from fatigue and ache, and he seems gaunt. Like Edom had been sucking the very life out of him.

Alec is so distracted by the terrible sight that he shivers when all of a sudden Magnus starts talking. “I figured out what Asmodeus did shortly after he gave me back my magic. Him worming his way topside right after you left me… It was a bit too convenient.” The warlock breathes sharply, grits his teeth so hard that it makes a sound. “I tried to leave. We fought, I lost. He locked me up and said that he’ll banish you from me. Since then…” Magnus trails off and narrows his eyes, not looking towards Alec. “When you came… I imagined that it was one of his tricks. Until you apologized. Asmodeus would never lower himself to apologizing for anything, not even for a show.”

Alec swallows. Guilt, sadness and panic claw at his stomach. “He… said that you’re to never know about the deal…” What if Asmodeus would…?

Magnus snorts. “For taking away and giving magic we’d have to be face to face. Just like with Lorenzo, remember? And we made sure that my father isn’t going to visit New York again.” The warlock starts to button up a shirt with slow, uncharacteristically clumsy fingers. “Also, even to a Greater Demon I’d have to give it away willingly. I highly doubt I’d consent to that anytime soon.”

Alec… doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet.

Magnus isn’t quite done yet, anyway. “Going to Asmodeus… You had no right to make that decision behind my back. It wasn’t your sacrifice to make, your price to pay. If you actually talked to me about it like you should’ve, I would’ve told you that I would’ve gone to him myself if that was an option.” The man clenches his jaw. “If you want to be with me… Then you have to understand that you can never, ever do something like that to me again.”

Oh, Alec has learned his lesson, all too well.

Another heavy silence falls and lingers. Alec fists his hands when the physical need to rush to Magnus and hold him becomes unbearable. “You have to know that those terrible things I said… I didn’t mean…”

“You did”, Magnus interrupts sharply. Then, the most bitter edge of hurt easing, continues slightly more calmly. But still doesn’t look his way. “Believe me, I’ve had more than enough time to think it all through and figure it out. And I know that you meant every single word. Because you may be good at a lot of things, but you’re a terrible liar. You just twisted and turned the truth like a seelie, to make it hurt enough to be believable.”

Alec swallows thickly. “I never wanted to hurt you.” He doesn’t think he’s said many things in his life that he would’ve meant more. “I just… You weren’t happy…”

“Happy, after I only just lost something that’s defined who and what I am for hundreds of years? I was grieving! I needed time and support, not my heart being ripped out of my chest when I already felt like I lost my soul with my magic!” Magnus snorts, so bitterly that it makes the archer feel sick. “And you figured that shattering my heart would lead to me being happy?” Finally, finally, those once again dark eyes clash with his. A million emotions swimming in them. “You took away the only good thing I had left! Did you really imagine that getting my magic back would somehow make up for that hurt?”

“You would’ve moved on.” Alec wants to grimace at his own words. At how wrong they sound all of a sudden. “You have before. I’m not the last…”

“Don’t you dare make it sound like you, or the people those items in my memory box represent, are just… passing things for me! Don’t you dare insult you all or me by imagining that you’re worth that little to me!” Tears of agony and fury fill Magnus’s eyes. “Every single one of those losses killed a part of me! But I’ve survived and recovered because I’ve had no other choice!” The warlock wipes his eyes. “How clearly do I have to spell this out for you? Before you I hadn’t opened my heart in over a century. I was already convinced that I never would again. Until you came along and I realized that a life without you would hurt worse than losing you one day will.” The man lets his shoulders slump, exhausted and visibly frustrated. “I need you as much as I need my magic. If you don’t believe that by now… Then I don’t know how much more I can give you to convince you.”

“I think you throwing yourself down a balcony almost right after we broke up painted a pretty clear picture”, Alec counters with anger he hadn’t meant to display. He doesn’t think that the sight will ever stop haunting him, and wonders if the… stunt he pulled during Max’s rune ceremony is a similar recurring nightmare for Magnus. Then again… He was under a spell. Magnus really, genuinely wanted to… Alec tries to swallow down the horrible taste in his mouth but doesn’t quite succeed. “Magnus… If things ever get that bad again, I need you to tell me.”

Magnus gives him a dark look. “It’s… going to take time before I’ll trust you enough to do that. After you saw me at my most vulnerable you made a deal with a Greater Demon. How…?” The warlock’s voice cracks. “How can I know that you won’t do something that stupid the next time I hit a rough spot?” Seeing his hurt and remorse, the man goes on. “You’d do anything for the ones you care about. It’s one of those things about you I fell in love with. But I’m not a mission, or a problem. I don’t need to be fixed, especially by breaking me in the process. I don’t need you running around looking for a solution, risking your life. I need you to stay with me. Like you did after the agony rune. And after I lost my post.” Magnus looks down, suddenly ashamed after realizing how much he’s given away. “Granted, this… was the lowest I’ve been in… well, centuries. But, those smaller rough spots… I’ll keep hitting them on occasion. That’s what depression is.” (Alec wonders, with as much grief as marvel, if that’s the first time the older man admits the word out loud.) Slowly and hesitantly Magnus peers up at him. “If you want to be with me… Then I need you to be strong enough to not crumble and give up when I do. I’m aware that it’s an unfair thing to ask…”

Alec can’t hold himself back anymore. With speed and force that surprises them both he crashes his lips against Magnus’s. Seals him into the kind of a kiss he feared he’d never get again. “I… I’ve almost lost you several times in just weeks”, he breathes against his beloved’s lips when they break apart, eyes closed. It feels incredibly good to smell and taste Magnus again, to feel his warmth. “If you’ll still have me… I’ll stay by your side for as long as I live.” He sniffles and wonders how long he’s been crying without noticing it. “I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you again if I tried.”

Magnus’s hand takes his and tightens around it, slowly yet surely. He doesn’t think anything’s ever felt so good. “It’s… going to take a while before I’m… alright again.” (They’re both aware of how big of a step admitting that much is.) “And before I can trust you and us again like I once did. If you’re patient enough to wait for me… I promise that I’ll try to be more open. Because my inability to admit that I wasn’t okay before breaking down altogether is a part of why we ended up to this mess. And I also promise to try to not hurt you again when I'm hurting. Quitting drinking is my first step towards that.”

Alec wraps his arms around Magnus and holds on tight. His heart soars when the smaller man relaxes gradually to his embrace and leans his head against shoulder. “I’ll give you all the time you need”, he swears. “You’re my world. And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

“That sounds awfully lot like a marriage proposal”, Magnus teases almost lightly, sounding half asleep.

_If only you knew…!_ “One day it will be”, Alec promises nearly inaudibly. Then continues more loudly. “For now, just… Just let me hold you.” _So I know that you’re really here. That this isn’t a dream._ He leans his head against Magnus’s. “I love you.”

It takes a few moments. But eventually the answer comes. “I love you, too.”

Alec is aware that it’ll take a long time before they’ll be able to move on from… all this. But by some miracle they’ve found their way back to each other once again. And Alec knows that one day, when Magnus is ready for it, he’ll slip the family ring on the warlock’s finger.

Alec holds Magnus so close that he can feel his beloved’s heart beating and feels hope for the first time since the failed dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo… How’s that for a slightly more positive ending? (smiles) Their relationship isn’t at 100 percent but it’s on the mend.
> 
> How was that? ANY good at all? PLEASE, do let me hear from you! Comments ALWAYS make my day.
> 
> And thank you, SO MUCH, for reading! Who knows. Maybe we’ll cross paths again?
> 
> Take care!

**Author's Note:**

> So… Yeah. Ouch. Poor Magnus! (whimpers) If Alec actually does make that deal… I wonder how he’ll manage to convince Magnus that he actually does love him? There better be a happy Malec ending!
> 
> Now… How was that? ANY good, at all? PLEASE, do let me hear your thoughts! It ALWAYS means the world to me.
> 
> THANK YOU, so much, for reading! Who knows. Maybe I’ll see you around again?
> 
> Take care!


End file.
